Bob, that is a difference without a distinction. Congress first committed and then has acquiesced in further commission of, high crimes under color of law for 97 years under the illegal 'Federal Reserve Act'.

The fact that a crime continues for 97 years, for a total heist well over 100 trillion dollars, does not make it any less a high crime today than when it was first committed. We The People (or we the States, however you'd like to frame the parties to the Constitution, the supreme LAW) only gave CONGRESS power to "coin money", and only gave to Congress the power to COIN money. Anything else is illegal.

Thus, every member of Congress today -- including those who call for auditing the Fed, tantamount to auditing Colombia's Medellin Cartel -- is complicit; is acquiescing in commission of the most massive financial crime in history. Every member of Congress today should have to answer for acquiescing as Congress continues to renew the counterfeiting concession to a cartel of private banks.

"We" did not "decide to ignore the warnings of the founders and print paper money anyway". Members of Congress, sworn to support the Constitution, have violated the highest law that can be violated in America. They are the moral equivalent of drug dealers, cutting ILLEGAL deals.

You make the preposterous assertion that the criminal Congress "found it easier to consolidate the power of the people within a federally-chartered corporation". No, sir; the law does not allow Congress to violate it, even to grant illegal concessions to state- or federally-chartered corporations...nor to individuals, partnerships, or the man in the moon.

I don't give a frog's quivering thigh WHO they grant illegal concessions to, or how long they have continued a racketeering scheme -- there is no statute of limitations on federal crimes (that have state equivalents, too), and each member of Congress that refuses to stop this RICO scam, is criminally indictable in his/her own state, under those state statutes. When entrusted with the currency, every member of Congress has a duty not to acquiesce in counterfeiting crimes instead, or to act dumb about it. Ignorance of the Constitution is no excuse for a member of Congress.

Please read the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers, especially the ones debating gold and silver versus paper money. The founders clearly decided not to trust the federal or state governments with paper money. The coinage act of 1792 is also relevant, even though it has been repealed.

To answer your question:

1. In Article 1, Section 10, the constitution forbids the states from "issuing bills of credit" (i.e. paper money).

2. The tenth amendment says that any power forbidden to the states is reserved to the people, not to the federal government.

3. A corporation such as "the Fed" is a legal "person" (although not a citizen) and thus entitled to "equal protection under the laws" according to the 14th amendment. Therefore (goes the argument) they have the power to print money, even though such power is forbidden to the state and federal governments.

So the reason "we need the fed to print money" is because "we" decided to ignore the warnings of the founders and print paper money anyway. Since the constitution makes it illegal to do so at the federal or state level, "we" found it easier to consolidate the power of the people within a federally-chartered corporation than to rewrite the constitution.

Please note that amendments exist to extend or clarify the meaning of the original document, not to contradict it. Since the original text is quite clear about this matter, a constitutional amendment could not legally enable the federal government to print paper money in contradiction with Article 1 Section 10. It would be necessary to rewrite the original document by holding a constitutional convention.